My blog concerning the development of Christianity in the post Kitos and Bar Kochba era. An examination of the texts of the NT and Heresiarchs to understand its development and origins.
It is also a place where I am pushing out unpublished papers and book chapters for public vetting. Comments and questions are always welcome.

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Monday, April 29, 2013

In attempting to reconstruct 2 Corinthians in Marcionite form I came across the problems of the fragmented text, specifically verse 6:14 where the phrase τίςκοινωνίαφωτὶπρὸςσκότος is quoted without regard to placement in Dialogue Adamatius 2.20 and clearly alluded to in Adversus Marcionem 3.8.3. The problem concerns the phrases surrounding, especially the reference to Belial.

James Tabor devotes a page on his website to the Corinthians Correspondence [1] which emphasizes the concept of 2 Corinthians being composed from four distinct documents/letters and a free floating fragment. While I have disagreement with some the specifics, I do find agreement in the labelingof the segment from 6:14-7:1 as "floating" in the Catholic version handed down to us, as clearly 6:11-13should be joined with 7:2-4. But the Tertullian and Dialogue Adamantius clearly show that at least portions of verses 6:14 and 7:1 were in Marcion's version of 2 Corinthians, while there is no attestation of the text surrounding this "floating" fragment.

Friday, April 5, 2013

This is a quick post today. I put up my Romans Interlinear that I did back in 2009 under the section "My Papers" on the lower right. Or just click here. Unfortunately my notes are only inline (footnotes), as I did not do an extensive analysis of what the Catholic editor was attempting to do.

There are some differences between my reconstruction and that of Herman Detering. I incorporated the work of Winsome Munro, who did some excellent work identifying some Pastoral vocabulary and recognizing some underlying structures and forms, independent of any influence with Marcionite studies. My biggest disagreement with Dr. Detering's reconstruction has to do with the Marcionite openings, where I think he did not follow his usual rigor. Most instructive was John J. Calbeaux's work on the Ephesians 1:1 and its dependence on Romans 1:1. The other notable differences are my decision to exclude 14:7-9 which intrudes upon the theme of dining etiquette and generally social differences (Romans shows dependence on both Corinthians letters); and my removal of the entire ending (Romans 16:25-27) as simply having too many Catholic elements, and even if it started in the heretical camp in shorter form as Dr. Detering shows, its still secondary and would have been unique in the Marcionite Apostolikon - why would anyone bother for a middle of the collection book?

NEXT UP: At the moment I am working on a Marcionite 2 Corinthians Interlinear, which is about half done. It is proving considerably easier than 1 Corinthians because of the block nature of the inserts. I will also put up my Galatians Interlinear (also from about 2009 time frame) later this month. Looking further down the road, a complete analysis of Matthew's use of the Antithesis, with a general commentary on the Synoptic problem and what Quelle actually is.